Monthly Archives: November 2012

I feel I should write. Maybe there’s something in the air late Saturday nights when I should really be sleeping seeing as I have things to do the next day. Things like get up at 7 am and jog. Things like meeting college friends for the first time in the holidays. Things like buy stuff. More on these trivial details later. I have important things to get to. To the whimsy-creator machine, Batman! I approve of the fact that MS Word recognizes Batman as a noun.

I have recently started interning under a lawyer who practices, among other things (debauchery, witchcraft, just kidding) criminal law. This is the second time I’m interning with a criminal lawyer in the lower courts, which is where in my expert opinion, any law is just a little bit more exciting. The first time was about 2 years ago and she was pretty awesome, but very different from this guy. He’s very… Alan Shore? No. More like Denny Crane in his court-room manners and style. He’s not like either of them in the looks department, before any of those who know my liking for older men start thinking all inappropriate like. But yeah, here’s what happened today. The opposing counsel got a bit defensive over a witness the as-of-now boss was crossing. The counsel said something mildly, very mildly, threatening to the boss. Not really threatening, just something along the lines of “I’ll teach you to be aggressive”. The following paragraph is the boss’ reply, with expletives that I took poetic to add. I took the license from Bill FTW Shakespeare. You can check.

“You don’t fucking threaten me, you motherfucking piece of shit. You know who I fucking am, asshole? I’ve faced down pansy-ass threats all up in my face! I fucking defended the *insert famous criminal case here* guy despite getting threats! I’ll fucking show you aggressive, you wait and see motherfucker. I know people you ain’t even thought of.”

I stood there, leaning against the witness stand (literally. Real Indian courts involve everyone crowded into one corner of the courtroom leaning against whatever they find) with no expression on my face whilst getting my mind blown. I figured that at that moment in time, the only skill I could contribute was a stellar poker face. And apparently, the whole shouting match thing is something the boss does often just to distract from the issue and get his way, especially during cross-examinations.

And the strange thing is, unlike most of the cases where men in Delhi say “Tu jaanta nahi hai main kisko jaanta hoon”, he wasn’t exaggerating. He has defended above-not-really-mentioned murderer despite getting threats. He has also defended serial killers. Rather prolific ones. I Googled that shit up. Yeah.

Two years ago, I would have asked this guy to be my Yoda. Imagine that. Deserves a defense, even a cold-blooded non-psychotic serial killer does. And today, the only reason I don’t want to be Luke is that I’m not that passionate about law any more. If I do regain said passion, this will very likely not be my style. I suspect I will be more of the dissecting every detail in a precise and clear manner in as calm a manner as I can summon kind of shark.

However, this difference in disposition does not take away from the awe. Its all awe up in here.

Incidentally, this is the one thing that law school inadvertently gives one that I really appreciate. The ability to reason in a particular manner even in every day discussions. I find it impossible to speak about any issue without knowing enough about it. Coffee table conversations are no longer my cup of tea (hehe) unless I have to refute a blatantly incorrect statement. And what most lawyers (at least the competent ones), including this boss, really do is make assertions after knowing all the facts. Apart from friends and the general good times, this is why I am glad for law school.

In the Narcotics Court, we have some bail matters to present. As we enter, I note that some of the policemen are rather movie police-men-y. And by that I mean, they don’t look like the policeman from Wasseypur. They look like the policeman you’ll get if Policeman Abhay Deol’s jattness was more obvious. Some of them are actually kind of really cute. They’re not Chulbul Pandey, and thank god for that. They don’t have gynecomastia (the medical term for man boobs) parading as pecs. They don’t have bulges all over the place. They’re fit in a lean kind of way. So that, ladies, is the appeal in the Jatt. I finally get it. They are the Jayne Cobb of India, except not as big.

Further into the Court room, I am afraid we have accidentally been transported via portal to one of the North-Eastern states. There are entirely too many… err… people from the North-East there. I mean every third accused hails from the North-East. I like to call them chinky, but that would be racist. Just like saying ‘them’ in the previous sentence is racist. I clearly need some time with the guidance counselor. Damn you, PC-culture-especially-prevelant-these-days-due-to-shitty-incidents! *shakes fist at non-existent god* So lets just say… East Indians? Though the damage is already done, and I refuse to edit it.

Seriously, there were a lot of East Indians (for the record, I really think saying ‘chinky’ is better than saying East Indians the way I’m saying it in my head. Its time the word got reclaimed) in the Narc courts. Their lawyers were also mostly East Indians.

Man they have really shitty facial hair. Its like wisps of the stuff. I could grow a better moustache if I let myself – just saying. Despite some lies I may have had to concoct a while ago, I suspect I will not be feeling amorous towards Oriental/Mongoloid men in the near future because of this. I went all forensic anthropological over there. The shit I do for you racist assholes.

Also, there is a lot of mention of Nigerian defendants, none of whom are present in court. Apparently, they have a tendency of absconding once you give them bail. Said the judge, not me. Sometimes I hate how stereotypes (like that of African drug dealers) have a smidgeon of fact as the basis.

Next, there’s an interesting discussion about how one medically determines the age a person may be. I shall be asking Hank Green about that some time in the future. They mention some test, the name of which was exceptionally medical sounding.

In the middle of this, the judge mentions how the extensive facial hair on the accused would generally be considered a sign of a certain age, but this may not always be the case. At which point, the accused is brought into the court. Because of the whole no-handcuffs-except-in-extreme-cases scene, the policeman bringing him in has locked hands with him. In another setting, this would be an “aww” moment. The guy is a Muslim (or a Jew. Which is more likely in India is anybody’s guess) with quite a load of facial hair.

The judge discusses whether Mohammedans could be inclined to have more facial hair than most people at a younger age. True story. The Doctor clarifies that it depends on genetics, which at this point, has no connection to the guy being a Mohammedan. You can imagine my outrage at such callous and bigoted statements coming from a Judge. How dare she try to say that men with facial hair cannot claim to be under 18? Why would any decent petty criminal grow a beard if this logic is applied? And then where will I turn to for my guilty pleasure of taking petty criminals with facial hair for the ride of their lives? Whores.

Sitting in the Narc Court and then the CBI court, I also get to wondering about men from my father’s generation as I see so many of the lawyers are of that demographic. Most of them are very unappealing to look at, and being quite the detective (one of my oldest childhood career choices) I set out to find out why.

I noticed that most North Indian men have this weird profile that does them no favors.

This is a drawing I put some effort into, so appreciate it. Note the prominent overbite coupled with the utterly scrunched up yet weak chin. No wonder so many of them have moustaches. I think once someone has a moustache, that is the only detail of their face that you remember. This is true of both men and women.

With women, this is not to their advantage because while it draws attention, it unflatteringly accentuates the areas of their face which in conventional terms, most determine feminine beauty, i.e. the lips and the nose. With men its different, because once its thick enough, the moustache completely overshadows said parts of the face, thus effectively obliterating any evidence of their terrible bone structure.

Which brings me back to the North-East men. Perhaps the reason their facial hair is so terrible is because it does to their faces what facial hair does to women’s faces. We can only speculate since very little research has been done on the subject.

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ME: This is what you signed up for, people who subscribe to this blog. A study of ugly faces. I look forward to your Unsubscribe.

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In other news, I finished Moab is My Washpot. It was awesome. Line – “Sex without smiling is as sickly and base as vodka and tonic without ice.”

Also finished The Fifth Elephant – “Sex bore some resemblance to cookery: it fascinated people, they sometimes bought books full of complicated recipes and interesting pictures, and sometimes when they were really hungry they created vast banquets in their imagination – but at the end of the day they’d settle quite happily for egg and chips. If it was well done and maybe had a slice of tomato.”

Also from Adrian Mole – “Us intellectuals keep anti-social hours. It does us good.”

I will be proceeding to A Brave New World. I hope its not one of the dull good books. I hate it when that happens. I will also be re-reading Romeo and Juliet because John Green will be discussing that in the next Crash Course and the last time I read it was at least 7 years ago.

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I have successfully jogged 5 days this past week as promised in previous post. I skipped the morning after Diwali, using my lungs and their safety as the excuse. I also skipped the day after that because I felt like skipping another day. I will hopefully not skip this week.

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I am seriously looking forward to Talaash, Chakravyuh and Lincoln. Especially Lincoln because I read Team of Rivals last semester and it proved to me that sometimes people are believably amazing. Also, Daniel Day Lewis is hot. Really. Once you watch The Unbearable Lightness of Being (I confess I have not read a single Kundera), Daniel Day Lewis will never again be pictured as the guy from Gangs of New York in your mind’s photo album.

Fortuitous occasions should be written about, right? I think they should be. Especially when, as with people like me; people who tend to talk to themselves (quite literally, I do), and especially around vacations spend most of their times reading, watching shows and generally avoiding people (or secretly celebrating when plans don’t pan out though I never admit it. Except now. Damn it, interwebs, y u so public?) the fortuitous moments are mostly found when we are all by our lonesome, and could be easily forgotten. Which of course begs the question of whether the moments are worth remembering at all, if my mind could forget them so easily. Well, no matter, leaving behind such inane and pointlessly philosophical questions, I now present to you, dear readers, some facts about music, the subject of which has been brought on by certain fortuitous coincidences. I’ve used the F word three times already. Your move, Monty Pythons. Who I’m sure are reading this.

I have been listening to not my usual playlist lately. That is to say I have added some stuff to the playlist. I rediscovered FNT by Semisonic. I fucking love that song and I don’t care that it was in 10 Things I Hate About You. I have also been going a bit overboard with the Dewarists, Shanker Tucker and a wee bit of Coke Studio, all of whom should be followed on Youtube by humans all over earth. Or maybe just India. Or people who, like me, have ears and similar taste in music. What do I know?

The F word coincidence was that Shanker Tucker’s Aaj Jaane Ki Zid Na Karo started playing exactly before I reached this part of Moab is My Washpot, which I faithfully reproduce for ye –

“The nothingness of music can be moulded by the listener into the most precise shapes or allowed to float as free as thought; music can follow the academic and theoretical pattern of its own modality or adhere to some narrative or dialectical programme imposed by a friend, a scholar or the composer himself. Music is everything and nothing. It is useless and no limit can be set on its use. Music takes me to places of illimitable sensual and insensate joy, accessing points of ecstacy that no angelic lover could ever locate, or plunging me into gibbering weeping hells of pain that no torturer could ever device. Music makes me write this sort of maundering adolescent nonsense without embarrassment. Music is in fact the dog’s bollocks. Nothing else comes close.”

Now usually, reading such a passage as this would turn me into a puddle of self-chastisement wherein I rue the day I ever thought I could write. I am not fit to lick the boot heels of one such as Fry, such as Yeats, such as any number of greats that in my fragile condition, I dare not remind you of. Assholes. But the fortuitous thing is that I happened to be listening to a particularly divine voice singing of not wanting a conversation or a balmy night (I assume the night would be balmy) to end. And even as I let myself get a little bent out of shape thinking of all the things Stephen Fry is better at doing than me, including getting men to like us, I am revived by the very thing he is talking about. I mean, how… what… eh…. is this irony? I am never sure if something like this is ironic. Especially because I just mentioned Stephen Fry and if say its irony and its not in fact irony, as legend goes, a homophobe baby would be born this very moment. And we don’t want that.

And now, since I have let young Master Fry talk about music (He’s still in school in the book) I fear there is no masterful way I can talk about it except in blatantly tiresome segues. And now, I note that I’m writing like him. Excuse me while I think about Sangria to contain my self-loathing. Joke. Inside joke. Apologies.

What I find is awesome about music is its ability to highlight small feelings and incidents. I am of the bent of mind where I don’t believe in great moments in a person’s life.There are great moments in history, sure. But no great moments for an individual. Allow me to explain. Every powerful life-changing moment in a single person’s life will inevitably be challenged by another moment, another argument, another person, anything else. I don’t believe in great truths or even simple truths (courtesy John Green). Every single decision or ‘truth’ you strike upon will eventually have to be revisited and moulded. And so every feeling is small, every thought is insignificant to a certain degree. By the way, someone enlighten me if this is in any way adhering to a philosophy that I have not come in contact with. What is great about music is that despite all the insignificance, it can capture and bring to life exactly why some insignificant moments and thoughts are worth remembering if for no other reason than that it was a part of life. All this ties up very neatly with the above mentioned confusion about whether or not some moments are worth remembering at all. This again is fortuitous because said neat tying up was not something I planned.

Which is why while I don’t have a dislike of any type of music except death metal and rap (for entirely personal taste reasons. I don’t care if other people like it) I will always be partial to music which doesn’t try to talk about the big picture. Whenever I have seen a big picture I usually step back and realise that its actually a giant phallus. Or maybe that’s just me. Either way, I always figured that the big picture is actually quite small when you put it in context of the entire human experience of even a single person. And so I adhere to what David Levithan said about the Beatles. Which I tried to capture this summer through the following drawing.

That’s not the exact quote from the book. Google that if you want it you lazy fucks. But I really tend to be more partial to music which doesn’t try to be bigger than one single life experience of one person. Because unless you’re talking about a freedom struggle or emancipation or something, you are simultaneously not doing them justice and giving them too.much credence. Things are not that simplistic and they are also too insignificant for you to make such a big deal about it. So here’s few other songs that I appreciate – Aaj Jaane Ki Zid Na Karo, Fascinating New Thing, Tujhse Naraz Nahi Zindagi (I really fucking love that this song basically says that things are just confusing and unclear – that’s a simple truth I can get behind), I can’t think of anything but Beatles now. Thanks David Levithan. Ass.

That’s all. Now fuck off. I want to read my pain.

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ME: *squints

me: Go on.

ME: I actually liked that.

me: ……….

ME: You should write more stuff like this. Where the wasteland that is your private life is not exposed for all to see, like some ghastly war wound that spouts blood and innards and nobody can do anything about.

me: There it is.

ME: I am nothing if not consistent.

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Anyway,for anyone who reads this regularly enough to miss it, I have not been putting up any gifs or pictures lately because I’m not using my laptop except to read porn and my laptop is where my inconceivably big collection of funny pics and gifs reside. Right now for example. I wrote this entire post on my kindle. In my head, y’all are like

And I’m all *insert self-satisfied gif here.*

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I have noticed that while I keep none of the promises I make to myself, due to a little thing called ego, I am keeping promises I made in this blog. Therefore, in an experiment that will no doubt have some major impact on my life, I vow to thee, readers who largely consist of my friends, that I shall be jogging at least five days a week during the course of these here holidays. If I don’t then the punishment of telling embarrassing secrets will be imposed on me. And since I have noted that telling these secrets have often helped me write, I have further decreed that they will be told without any writing skills and in the blandest, non-entertaining manner.

ME: You mean to say that all the shitty details of your past will be coming out, and you won’t be able to explain yourself or make entirely transparent self-deprecating jokes about it? *about to do happy dance*

me: Only if I don’t jog.

ME: Sure sure. *commencing happy dance*

me: They’re your secrets too, you know.

ME: Yeah, but I’m the side of you that delights in brutal honesty. *cackles

It is very rare that I get an actual idea for this blog. I usually wait for inspiration to strike, unsuccessfully, and right at the end of the week, somewhere around Saturday night, I get desperate and either accept that some kind of revealing/ embarrassing secret would be told the next week, or write a shitty rant about something. Sometimes even when I do have an idea, it doesn’t work out too well, but because its Saturday and I spent time and effort on writing some fucking bullshit, I put it up anyway. But right now, inspiration is here, in a form that I would never have thought inspiration would take.

I have in my house right now, that most dreaded thing that we young adults have in lieu of socializing – visitors. And they are the exact kind of visitors to detest. Not because they are hateful people, I’m sure they’re not. If they were, then at least you could sit there and listen to them and their hateful talk, and feel amused and superior in your ability to not tear their heads off. No, these are the worst kind of visitors, i.e. relatives of an entirely unknown nature. That is, they are unknown to me. My mom’s someone’s something’s someone.

The irritating part is, I’m fairly certain that if my dad’s someone’s something’s someone came along for a visit, they would probably be equally boring. But the thing I appreciate about my dad is that he doesn’t bother to be in touch with many of his someone’s something’s someone’s. Precisely because they would be the dullest thing to happen to the house since they inexplicably painted it a puke green. Which is not dull, really; its incredibly poignant – it’s a puke green, which if you think too much about, you may be induced to puke. Circle of life of paint and vomit. I will, later in my life, write a book titled “Life of Paint and Puke.” It could be a tell all book about the people I went to law school with, who will probably be some kind of big shots in whatever they do in fifteen to twenty years. Or it could be a parody of “Life of Pi”. I am so-o-o changeable. Hehe. Moffat!

Anyway, this has led me to wonder about all of the things that adults do that make absolutely no sense to me. And I say this knowing full well that my future self may just evolve into one of those pompous creatures that go by that terrible honorific – and I use that word very lightly – of ‘adult’. Not everybody has the good fortune to be as in sync with their younger selves as Stephen Fry, I say with the kind of authority that only youth or debilitating age can bring into discussions about ‘life’.

ME: Enough with the Mamet/Gilmore-speak! Get to the point.

Right. As with my previous post that involved listing things, this will be mildly scattered, given the fact that I will occasionally leave to either get some food (the only good part about visitors like these) or stare at myself in the mirror, wondering about eyebrows, facial hair and make-up. And my pores. Also, since I have promised myself no bullet pointing here, I will refrain from numbering as well. I should mention that some of these behaviors are exhibited by people my age as well. This post may just be a testimony to how much I dislike social niceties.

So. Let’s get to it, shall we? Why do adults have awkward silences? I’m not trying to say that I don’t have awkward silences. I do. But these are brought on by something awkward/ uncomfortable someone said, or did, or someone said about someone doing something. And its always in a group of friends. Then, people my age shut up for about five seconds and then either dilute the situation by saying “Crickets” or taper off into something else.

Adult awkward silences are different. They are brought on because people have nothing to say. And it can happen with an astonishingly large number of people. They would laugh about something in loud, raucous unison which would be audible all the way over in the young people room. This laughter would fade away into the void, leaving behind five to ten adults with after-laugh-not-really-there-anymore smiles on their faces. All of them apparently having a collective brain-freeze on talking points. Then they will sit in silence for about five seconds, in which time, one of the women will bring up some food, or one of the men will bring up either sports or politics. Yeah, I went there. Sue me for being so gender stereotype-y, but that’s what happens most of the times.

Here is what I don’t understand – if you have nothing to say, why not just split up into smaller groups of people who like each other, and do have things to say to each other, and then talk? I know, because its just not done. But seriously, why the fuck not? Or if it’s a group that’s made up of three to five people all doing the after laugh awkward pause, or even the no-conversation-left awkward pause, or the oh-no-we-mentioned-that-thing-all-of-us-non-verbally-agreed-to-not-mention awkward pause, then my question to you is, why on earth are you meeting up with a group of two to three people whom you have nothing to say to? Why? Why are you socializing with people you cant be friends with? Especially if you’re married? Since you already found yourself a fuck buddy for life, the only thing left in socializing should be a drinking buddy or a buddy-buddy. And so many awkward pauses means you’re not going to be buddies-buddies. It means you’re going to fuck-buddies. It’s complicated. See what I did there? Tera tera tera suroooooooor.

Next – why do adults always need to take their children along? I swear to you, we as young adults who barely know each other, have things like books and movies to talk about and as a result, will always have better conversations than you as adults who have nothing of the sort. And yet, I swear to you, none of us really want to visit each other, despite the fact that we have better conversations. You adults bring us along, presumably as a ghastly coming-out/ initiation ritual into the lifelong affliction of meeting people you’re not friends with. More likely, you do it to have more people around to diffuse the awkward.

And here is one of the few things in this long list of absurdities that is actually a bit morally decrepit. Why do you always behave like interfering, judgmental, mean-ass people? “She was wearing blah blah blah, and I don’t like it because blah blah blah” Yeah well, if I wore that, I sure won’t give a fuck what some forty year old busybody thought about it. “You know, he’s a insert-derogatory-tone-into-social group-here. They’re all a bit manipulative/ stingy/ backward/ stupid”. Shut up. Nobody wants to know your opinions, especially when your opinions belong in your ass.

Next, why do the grown ups always want to know how much you’re enjoying things? This may be personal to me, but I really don’t enjoy most of the things they ask me about. College – no, not really. The dinner conversation – no. The people I meet at internships – mostly, no, with a few delightful exceptions. But I cant really say that because the question is “How much are you enjoying this?” Like not enjoying it has not occurred to them. And trust me, I have tried to say that I don’t enjoy it. This more often than not leads to a lecture on how we have to get along with people, struggle, make friends, have polite conversations at dinner parties, in life. No. That is the premise of your social life. I can choose to not make that my social life when I get my adult trophy as hyperboleandahalf puts it.

Why do they behave like what you do with your time on the internet has no value? Granted, twitter or facebook may not be great things as such, but where they lead you, i.e. completely amazing educational videos or blogs, introduce you to new ideas, etc. is very valuable. And when you try to show the adults, they always behave like it’s a phase that the internet and you are going through.

And that brings me to my next conundrum. Why do the adults think that every personal or professional decision you have come to at the age of 21 or 22 is a ‘phase’? Granted, I may change my mind about becoming a tattoo artist but at least give me the benefit of the doubt when I say to you that I may not want to get married. It’s not even a definitive statement. It’s a probably. What is so wrong in admitting that I may not in fact want to get married? Or that I may not in fact, want to make more money than necessary for food and internet? Or that I may in fact like both men and women? Or that my friends do? And that it’s an actual life, and not just a phase that we’re talking about?

I have to point out that adults also have a painful habit of telling their problems to everyone who fits in the descriptor of ‘friends’ in their lives. I don’t mean that I don’t tell my friends about problems. God knows they would drug me if I didn’t tell them. What I mean is that there are friends and then there are friends. I tell about four to five people about my problems and my plans. Almost everybody I know tells four to five people about their problems. Not adults. Adults tell their work friends, their college friends, their proper friends, their friends whom they met after ten years, their friends who are friends because of common friends, their relative/ friends, all of these people, about their problems. And you know what? More power to them. Tell who you want. But then they tell each other about other people’s problems. Specifically, about my problems. Not just problems, no. They tell each other about my opinions. And my dreams. And my interests. In the above mentioned tone of superior know-it-all-ness.

And then all of these adults who know about my stuff would somehow think its okay to talk to me about it. It really isn’t. I would ask for your opinion if I wanted it. And you are not close enough to me to tell me even if I don’t want to hear it. That authority is reserved for my parents, sisters and friends. Not person whom I call uncle/aunty.

And why do they care what I eat? Or when I sleep? Or how much I sleep? Or where I sleep? Really, they care too much about sleeping. And trust me, as a student, I know the value of good sleep, but not so much that I have to tell other people about it. The whole sleep thing is strange. Is it one of the points that you have to remember from your ‘proper grown-up adult’ handbook? “An inordinate amount of concern over the sleep patterns of all people you come in contact with is one of the qualifying characteristics that define you as a proper grown-up adult.” *read that last bit in robotic yet sickly sweet British accent*

Why are they – and this is specifically about parents (like the others weren’t. hehe. But no, this is specifically about parents) – so uncomfortable about sex? I know you don’t want to imagine your babies swoodlypooping. I doubt your babies want to come to you and talk about swoodlypooping (Anybody get that reference? Anyone??). But just the mention of swoodlypooping, and they can’t look you in the eyes anymore. Just because I know it exists doesn’t mean I’m going to be the next Candy Fiveways.

Okay. That’s 2000 words. I think its enough. Bye bye.

ME: At least there was no emo stuff this time.

me: Yeah. I have no more tears left. I started taking this new medication. Its about 40 percent cocaine. It adds some much needed pizzaz to me life.

ME: Shut up.

Anyway, what else is up?

I finished reading A Widow for One Year which had a surprisingly happy ending. Compared to his other books. I already mentioned these on facebook, but since they got likes I figure it couldn’t hurt to say it again.

“Who can distinguish between falling in love and imagining falling in love? Even genuinely falling in love is an act of the imagination.”

“(He) was as deceitful as a damaged condom.”

So I will be moving on to Moab is My Washpot. I have high expectations.

I have discovered/ admitted to my unbridled lust for Jonny Lee Miller. That is one fine piece of British ass. I haven’t become a fan of Elementary or anything. I just watch it because of his face and his body. I gots needs.

I just watched the Lizzie Bennet Diaries. Darcy is really making me happy with his face, and his awkwardness. Oh yes, I likes that man.

I have been relaxing my butt off for the past 12 hours. I got a kindle, for which I have no words. How do I express exactly how much … Too many feels, as they say. I would like to mention here that my parents seem to be unable to get the cheap version of anything, especially technology. I asked for the cheapest kindle. They got me the Kindle fire thing which I must say, I’m quite afraid of. Nevertheless, I have sent out mails to my friends with demands for e-books which they have gladly obliged me with. Except for some, who presumably are too busy having fun or something to actually help me out and send me a few more thousand books. Fucking bastards.

This also means that soon I will be shifting my entirely scandalous, utterly gratuitous and not at all small collection of erotica (or as I like to think of it – Book porn) to the Kindle, where innocent souls who just wanted to look at my e-book of Homer’s Illiad will get a load of this-

“Micco grabbed her hips and pulled her against his cock. He stepped forward, walking her backward toward the bed…”

I know, right? Who the fuck names their kid Micco?? Idiots.

Moving on. I would very much like to relate the story of The View from the Top. I like to imagine it as a tragi-comedic tale of a Victorian era girl and her first contact with scandalous behavior in a carriage bumping and grinding its way across the wild moors of England. She may or may not meet Mr. Rochester later. I have some porno of Rochester and Jane as well. Any takers? Just kidding. I’m not giving that to anyone.

Anyway, this story starts with three young women who had a harrowing experience finding their seat on a train because the ass who booked their seat cancelled it, then booked another seat. Bunch of crap. So there we were – yours truly, H and A, lugging our luggage across two bogeys in a moving train. You can imagine how popular we were. We made friends, we broke hearts, we regained our virginities. You know, the usual.

So when we finally got to our seat, we were very pleased. Not just because we got to our seat but because for once, once in our entire collective lives, there was a guy sitting there (with his mom, but that wasn’t important then) who was actually cute. He wasn’t the brightest of people or really very age appropriate as we later found out – eighteen really doesn’t do it for ladies unless they’re sixteen or forty – but he was cute and tall, with nice hair.

And maintaining discreetness with great aplomb – we didn’t even give each other pointed looks of glee – we each settled down for a nice journey of sleeping, reading, finishing our papers (that was a bummer) whilst discreetly keeping an eye on pretty face guy. Later we all knew we would corner him and make him uncomfortable with our lame flirting, and maybe, just maybe, with the stars on our side, we could give him a lil’ some’n some’ng, if you know what I mean. No, that was a joke lie. We just planned on cornering him when he went to the loo and taking turns with him.

But as these tales are wont to go, it all went awry. Which word by the way, did you know was pronounced as “Uh-rye”. Yeah, when I found out I was so glad I never actually said the word out loud in public as I had imagined it pronounced – “Aww-ree”. I digress. From the very beginning, me and H started noticing some strange stuff. We kept it to ourselves, because we could hardly talk to each other in front of them. And we also thought that as members of the cult of the unfeeling, we were perhaps wrong.

Let me put it this way. After meeting the mother and som, I wondered for half a minute if they were in fact mother and son. They sat really close together. Unnaturally so, as far as I was concerned. You don’t sit that close to your friends unless you happen to be reading the same thing. I don’t know why you would sit that close to a parent under any circumstances. And later, it got better/ worse, depending on your sense of humor and/or your scruples. There really was a rather excessive amount of affection here, believe you me. There was hair touching, knee rubbing, thigh grazing, cheek pulling. All of these behaviors would usually result in a mild amount of neck-rubbing discomfort with just a hint of awkward laugh on our parts. But that would be the case when it’s a couple sitting in front of us. This was mother and son.

But then again, me and H were brought up in nice Indian families that have quite appropriately ignored physical forms of affection as an acceptable part of social behavior. So we could have been wrong about that.

At some point of time we went to visit our Mallu friend in the first class compartments and on the way, gave vent to our feelings on the matter. A whole lot of laughter was had and “This is not appropriate railgaadi behavior” comments were made. We also acknowledged that if it weren’t for this whole Mommy dearest situation, we would both be willing to eat food off him. Ok no. We would just have been willing to fantasize about eating food off of him. But alas, Mommy dearest was there, and doing things to the boy that in Karnataka, his girlfriend would have gotten arrested for. She was also pet-naming him to death – “Shona”, “Baby, “Bacha”, all in the baby voice I reserve solely for dogs and a few cats, and H reserves for sarcastically putting down people.

We came back and found the Oedipal couple sitting next to each other still. He was fiddling with his iPhone (which by the way, is a real turn off when you do nothing else through an entire train journey) and she had earphones attached to said iPhone. Note how the narrative hear makes them sound like a couple? Yeah, I’m not doing that on purpose. So once we got back, we all settled down with the mom, her ‘Shona’ and an old guy with a very contagious-sounding cough.

And then she kissed his shoulder, with a loud kissy noise that kids make when they’re teasing other kids about kissing. I didn’t look at H. She didn’t look at me. We didn’t look at A, and she didn’t look at us. There was some real palpable as shit silence there. She did it a second and a third time, at which point I couldn’t control myself and I snorted my mirth out. Thankfully I had a book in front of my face, and John Irving had given me enough laughs earlier in the journey to make it seem like I was laughing at something in the book. We went to sleep at ten at the urging of the contagious old man. I personally didn’t protest because sleeping meant everybody would be in their own seats and not touching each other.

Now I admit, all of this at some level sounds like a mean spirited and emotionally skeptical rant about what could very well be the manifestation of a mother’s infinite love for her child. I kept the barf in for that sentence, congratulations to me. And in some ways, it could indeed be evidence of modern galtgurls (us) with our galt soch. Still others may point out that we make fun of these expressions of parental affection because we have very little of it. While I may not agree with the premise of these arguments – that because we don’t like to express affection to the extent that this particular family did, we are emotionally stunted or devoid of nice thoughts – I will agree that there may be some truth to the assertion that we judge the appropriateness of affection according to the way we are brought up; and which one of us hasn’t ever wanted to have been brought up differently?

Coming back from the philosophic, the next morning, I woke up at 6 because my mom called, very likely out of jet lag. And I stayed up till we got to Delhi. H I learnt, had gotten up at 4 randomly and had not been able to go back to sleep properly since then. The reason? She was sleeping on the top berth. The cute guy was sleeping on the berth beside her. And you may think, knowing H, that this was why she couldn’t go to sleep. But no. His mom was sleeping on the bottom berth opposite to H’s side of the cubicle.

And when H accidentally woke up at 4, what kept her up was the fact that the guy was not sleeping in his berth beside her. He was sleeping on his mom’s berth. With his mom. They were lying there together, spooning. Spooning. She was the big spoon, he was the little spoon and she was holding onto him for dear life, hopefully just to prevent him from falling down from the very narrow sleeping space. Now that, dear reader(s) is not really a subjective sort of weirdness. Nope.

Thankfully, the happy couple had gotten off at Agra and H could safely open her eyes in the morning and not have to see their faces. She told us about it and as you can imagine, we realized we were never going to run into a cute guy who was not going to have gargantuan mommy issues if we travelled by train. I may just take a flight next time.

All of this brings us to several socio-cultural questions. Does this qualify as hilarious, disturbing, or a fascinating study of changing roles in the family unit? Or is it simply creepyfying? Or were they actually a couple pretending to be mother and son because of the unconventional age difference, but once the lights went off and the rocking of the train got too rhythmic, they could not stop themselves from at least lying with each other, even if they couldn’t actually ‘lie’ with each other in all the ways they wanted to? Are we dirty minded? What is the meaning of spooning, and when is it appropriate? If I don’t care that you have an incestuous relationship, does that mean you can spoon while I can see you?

So many questions.

– Billy

ME: meh.

me: I agree. Little bit. But better than running out of secrets to tell.